1. Field
Methods and apparatuses consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a clothes dryer (or a laundry dryer) and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
As one type of a clothes dryer, there is a circulation type clothes dryer in which air dehumidified and heated by a heat exchanger is circulated to dry clothes.
The circulation type clothes dryer includes a cooling device which cools and dehumidifies circulation air, a heating device which heats the air dehumidified by passing through the cooling device, an air blowing device which circulates the air, and an air circulation passage which guides the air to be circulated. All of the cooling device, the heating device and the air blowing device are disposed along the air circulation passage.
During the drying process, moisture contained in the circulation air may be condensed on a surface of the cooling device, and thus condensation liquid (e.g., water) is generated.
A condensation water container for collecting the condensation water is provided in the clothes dryer, and the condensation water collected in the condensation water container is discharged or stored in a separate storage tank.
For example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2011-239817 (Patent Document 1), there is disclosed a technique in which the condensation water separated from the cooling device is collected in a base plate, and then the condensation water collected in the base plate is discharged to an outside of a laundry drying machine using a pump. Also, in a clothes dryer disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2014-33849 (Patent Document 2), the condensation water condensed by a dehumidifying unit is collected in a dehumidifying tank through a collection passage which extends under the dehumidifying unit, and the water collected in the dehumidifying tank is supplied to a storage tank disposed above a main body of the clothes dryer by a pump.